The silence of the Carpathian forest was no longer the peaceful solitude I had spent my life craving. It was a suffocating, predatory stillness—the kind that screamed of teeth, steel, and eyes watching from the shifting shadows of the pines.
Luca moved with a fluidity that was unnerving, his body a silent, lethal shadow against the backdrop of the silver-barked trees. He had pushed me into the hollow of an ancient, gnarled oak, his frame shielding mine from the world, though his presence felt less like a sanctuary and more like a cage.
"Stay," he hissed. The command vibrated against my skin, his chest rising and falling in sharp, rhythmic bursts of exertion. His eyes—those terrifying, amber-gold eyes—were darting across the darkness, tracking movements I couldn't see, smells I couldn't perceive.
"I am not a dog, Luca," I breathed, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to sound defiant. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird seeking release. "And you aren't my master."
He spun toward me, his hands slamming against the wood on either side of my head. The impact shuddered through the trunk, rattling my teeth. He didn't just loom; he engulfed. The scent of him—pine needles, rain-soaked earth, and that underlying, metallic tang of raw, unbridled wolf—was everywhere.
"You are a target," he growled, his voice dropping to a low, guttural register that made my skin crawl and my pulse spike in equal measure. "And they aren't here for the pack. They are here for you, Beatrice. They know what’s waking up inside your blood."
I flinched, the accusation hitting closer to home than I dared to admit. My skin burned where the old, jagged scar on my shoulder lived, a phantom heat that pulsed in time with the encroaching danger. "I don't know what you’re talking about."
"Liar." He leaned in, his face mere inches from mine. His jaw was tight, a muscle ticking rhythmically. "You’ve felt it. The fever. The way the moon makes your nerves sing until you think you might tear your own skin off. You think you’re a biologist studying wildlife? You are the wildlife."
His thumb grazed my cheekbone, not with tenderness, but with a proprietary sort of curiosity. His touch was cold, contrasting with the sweltering heat radiating from his body. My breath hitched. I hated him for his arrogance, for the way he had manipulated my life, yet my body was a traitor. Every time he touched me, that dormant, terrifying energy within me surged to meet him, an electric current seeking its source.
"Why do you care?" I whispered, my gaze dropping to his throat, where a pulse beat with steady, predatory grace. "If I am what you say, if I’m dangerous... why protect me? Why not just hand me over to them and be rid of the headache?"
A dark, humorless smirk touched his lips. He leaned further, his nose grazing my ear, his breath hot against my sensitized skin. "Because you are mine to break, Beatrice. Not theirs. Never theirs."
The vulnerability of the position was absolute. I was trapped in the hollow of the tree, hemmed in by his broad shoulders and the sheer weight of his intent. He was violent with the world—I knew this now, after watching him tear through the brush to keep us alive—but with me, there was a frightening, simmering restraint. It was the restraint of a hunter who didn't want to ruin the pelt before he had finished claiming the prize.
"Get off me," I demanded, though the words lacked conviction. My hands found purchase on his chest, intending to push, but instead, my fingers curled into the thick fabric of his jacket. The heat of his heart, beating with a strength that felt inhuman, anchored me to the spot.
His expression flickered—a brief, agonizing flash of something raw and exposed. For a fleeting second, the cold, manipulative Alpha was gone, replaced by a man who looked haunted by a century of waiting. He looked at my mouth, his gaze heavy and darkening with a hunger that had nothing to do with food.
"I should have left you to rot in that city," he muttered, his voice ragged. "But the moment you stepped back into these woods, the moment I saw you standing in the clearing... the tether tightened. You have no idea what you’ve done to me, Bea."
He shifted, his hand moving to the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair. He pulled, forcing my chin upward. My resistance withered. I was terrified of him, yes, but in this suffocating dark, he was the only thing standing between me and the men with the thermal scopes and the tranquilizer darts.
His face hovered inches from mine. I could see the golden flecks in his iris, the way his pupils dilated as he looked at me. The tension was a physical weight, a wire pulled to the point of snapping.
"Tell me to stop," he whispered against my lips, his voice a lethal promise. "Tell me you don't want this, and I will walk away and leave you to the hunters. You have three seconds."
"Luca—"
He didn't wait for the third. He crashed his mouth against mine—not a kiss of romance, but an act of total annexation. It was angry, possessive, and tasted of iron and desperation. I gasped into his mouth, my hands clenching his shirt, my body betraying my mind by arching toward him. He growled, a low, vibration that rattled through my chest, and pinned me harder against the tree, his arms acting as bars.
It was a collision of two worlds: the girl who wanted to understand the science of the woods, and the wolf who had been waiting for her to become his apex. The kiss deepened, becoming a frantic, rhythmic exchange of breath and heat, an attempt to fuse us together before the world outside could tear us apart.
Suddenly, he pulled back, his chest heaving. His head snapped toward the trees to our left. The air grew frigid.
"They’re here," he snarled, his eyes flashing with a predatory, inhuman light. He shoved a heavy, black object into my hand—a handgun I hadn't seen him retrieve. "Do not move. If you see a light, you shoot. If you see a shadow, you shoot. If you try to run, Beatrice, I will find you, and I will make you regret the day you ever learned my name."
He stepped away, his form blurring into the dark, leaving me alone in the cold, clutching the weapon as the snap of a twig echoed through the trees like a gunshot.